High-rise

Dr. Robert Laing is the newest resident of a luxurious apartment in a high-tech concrete skyscraper whose lofty location places him amongst the upper class. But as power outages become more frequent and building flaws emerge, particularly on the lower floors, the regimented social strata begins to crumble and the building becomes a battlefield in a literal class war.

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A diamond in the rough. An excellent film adaptation of Ballard's novel; well acted, great editing and cinematography. Not exactly the most inspiring film but we are what we are, and sometimes we humans can get a bit ugly, which is what this story portrays. High rise living is kind of creepy in its own design, don't you think? Well you will after watching this gem.

That is what happen when the ignorance is getting rich and is repeating the history.
There is a moral lesson here. Considering the ongoing segregation in the new buildings in Vancouver, based on income, where even the kids are segregated on the playground, I am not so positive, neither so indifferent like some other comments

This movie could be joint to other extreme "high-rise" version presented in the Indonesian movie "The Raid". Both movies complete what appears in soft version or hard reality of oppression in some local buildings.

We have to be careful when the big evil is taking slowly place around, These movies are waking up for everyone who cares. Moreover the future is high-rise for all.

I’ve seen this film 3 times and pick up on different things each time. It’s definitely polarizing, but that’s a good thing. I think it’s a terrific film that is brave enough to go in some challenging directions. Certainly not for an easy-viewing movie night. I watched a couple of film festival q and a sessions with the cast and found those added to my enjoyment of the film for my third viewing, along with the DVD commentary.

I ENJOYED THE NOVEL OF THE SAME NAME, BY J.G. BALLARD, SO I WAS BIASED TO ENJOY THE FILM. THE SEX SCENES TITILLATED ( LET US SAY I WOULD NEVER KICK SIENNA MILLER OUT OF MY BED). THE CLASS WARFARE ANGLE DID NOT COME OVER AS CLEARLY AS IT DID IN THE NOVEL. HMMMM..... HAS THERE BEEN A REALLY GOOD VERSION OF 1984 DONE YET? HOW ABOUT BRAVE NEW WORLD? THOMAS MORE'S UTOPIA? B.F. SKINNER'S WALDEN? How does one make an 'apocalyptic romp'? You mean like CALIGULA was a Roman Empire romp? If so, you need better, longer sex scenes. By the way, CALIGULA makes my top 15 list of films.

Try to understand High-Rise and you will probably drive yourself mad! This movie is adapted from a novel about a high-rise complex that descends quickly into chaos with disturbing consequences. This movie is filled with excellent, well-known actors and they each bring their own star-power to this confusing, artistic film.

Summary

violent murders, nudity, sex, mixed in with a few scenes of critical thinking (not much of that).
The plot is a mess. I am reminded of how Fight Club (Brad Pitt, Ed Norton) did this type of movie before, but coherently.

"High Rise" centers around four major characters: Dr. Robert Laing, an instructor at a local medical school, Richard Wilder, a television documentary producer, Anthony Royal, an architect, and the high rise building all three live in with 2,000 other people. Throughout the story, Ballard switches back and forth between these three people, recording their thoughts and actions as they live their lives in the new high-rise apartment building. Ballard made sure to pick three separate people living on different floors of the forty floor building: Laing lives on the twenty fifth floor, Wilder lives on the second floor, and Royal lives in a penthouse on the fortieth floor (befitting his status as the designer of the building). Where you live in this structure will soon take on an importance beyond life itself. At the beginning of the story, most of the people living in the building get along quite well. There are the usual nitpicky problems one would expect when 2,000 people are jammed together, but overall people move freely from the top to the bottom floors. A person living on the bottom floors can easily go to the observation deck on the top of the building to enjoy the view, or shop at the two banks of stores on the tenth and thirty-fifth floors. Children swim and play in the pools and playgrounds throughout the high rise without any interference. Despite the fact that well to do people live in the building, with celebrities and executives on the top floors, middle-class people on the middle floors, and airline pilots and the like on the bottom ten floors, everyone gets along reasonably well-at first. Then things change. The gossip level increases among the residents, and parties held on different floors start to exclude people from other areas.